kraken35kraken36kraken37kraken38kraken39kra30 cckra30 ссkra30kra30 atkra31 cckra31 ссkra31kra31 atkra32 cckra32 ссkra32kra32 atkra33 cckra33 ссkra33kra33 atkra34 cckra34 ссkra34kra34 atkra35 cckra35 ссkra35kra35 atkra36 cckra36 ссkra36kra36 atkra37 cckra37 ссkra37kra37 atkra38 cckra38 ссkra38kra38 atkra39 cckra39 ссkra39kra39 atkra40 cckra40 ссkra40Agreement at the White House Monday on the next step – a bilateral meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – seemed broadly unanimous. Then came the Russian response.“The idea was discussed that it would be appropriate to study the opportunity of raising the level of representatives of the Russian and Ukrainian sides,” said Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, briefing reporters on US President Donald Trump’s call with Putin. No mention of either leader by name, or any indication the “representatives” could be raised to that level.Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov appears on Russian state media on Tuesday, August 19.Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov appears on Russian state media on Tuesday, August 19. Russian MFARussian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took a more conciliatory tone in a state TV interview later Tuesday. “We do not refuse any forms of work – neither bilateral nor trilateral,” he insisted. But: “Any contacts involving top officials must be prepared with the utmost care.”In Kremlin speak, that means they are nowhere near ready to agree to this.And that should come as no surprise.This is a war that Putin started by unilaterally recognizing a chunk of Ukrainian land (the self-styled Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics) as independent. He has argued Ukraine is “an inalienable part of (Russia’s) own history, culture and spiritual space,” and its separation from Russia is a historical mistake.So if this meeting happens – as Orysia Lutsevich, the director of Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia program puts it – Putin “will have to accept the failure of sitting down with a president he considers a joke from a country that doesn’t exist”.It would also, she argued, be a huge reversal in tone that would be tough to explain to the Russian people. “(Putin) so much brainwashed Russians on state television that Zelensky’s a Nazi, that (Ukraine’s) a puppet state of the West … that Zelensky’s illegitimate, why is he suddenly talking to him?”The Kremlin not only routinely questions the legitimacy of the Ukrainian leader, fixating on the postponement of elections in Ukraine, illegal under martial law, but in its latest “peace” memorandum requires Ukraine to hold elections before any final peace treaty is signed. Putin and other Russian officials rarely refer to Zelensky by name, instead preferring the scathing moniker of “the Kyiv regime.” And don’t forget it was Zelensky who traveled to Turkey for the first direct talks between the two sides in mid-May, only for Putin to send a delegation headed by a writer of historical textbooks.kra40 at
